Islamic State claims Istanbul attack

New Year’s Eve club shooter killed 39

Istanbul — The Islamic State group on Monday made an unusual claim of responsibility for a major terrorist attack in Turkey, saying a “soldier of the caliphate” carried out the mass shooting at an Istanbul nightclub that killed 39 people as they welcomed the new year.

The group said Christian revelers were targeted in response to Turkish military operations against the Islamic State in northern Syria, but most of the dead were foreign tourists from Muslim countries.

The terrorist group also claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb attack in Iraq on Monday, in which a pickup loaded with explosives struck a bustling market in Baghdad, killing at least 36 and injuring 52.

The Istanbul nightclub assailant, armed with a long-barreled weapon, killed a policeman and a civilian early Sunday outside the Reina club before entering and firing at some of the estimated 600 people inside. The establishment is frequented by famous locals, including singers, actors and athletes.

Authorities obtained the fingerprints and a basic description of the gunman and are close to identifying him, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said Monday after a weekly cabinet meeting. He confirmed that eight people have been detained in connection with the attack.

The Islamic State group boasts of having cells in Turkey, regularly issues propaganda in Turkish and is believed to have hundreds of Turks in its ranks. But until now, the main act of aggression it had claimed in Turkey was the March killing of a Syrian journalist and an attack on riot police in the province of Diyarbakir, which Kurdish militants also claimed.

Other attacks in Turkey have been linked to the Islamic State, but without specific claims of responsibility.

For some analysts, the claim signaled a shift in Islamic State strategy in Turkey, a predominantly Muslim nation and NATO member.

“It’s a new phase,” security analyst Michael Horowitz said. “What we saw before was an undeclared war, and now we’re entering an open war.”

The Islamic State claim said only that the attacker struck to “let infidel Turkey know that the blood of Muslims that is being shed by its airstrikes and artillery shelling will turn into fire on its territories.”

Early Turkish media reports suggested the nightclub gunman was probably from either Uzbekistan or Kyrgyzstan and may have been part of the same cell that staged a June attack on Istanbul Ataturk Airport that killed 45 people.

By attacking as the nation was celebrating the new year, the group indicated that it intends to continue being a “scourge” against Turkey in 2017, Kurtulmus said.

Many analysts also see the latest attack as a sign of growing desperation within the Islamic State.

The group has been threatened in al-Bab, Raqqa and Mosul in Iraq and “needs to reassert itself,” Horowitz said.